Freedom

Pic from www.rving.com

What is freedom? Is it the ability to do whatever you want whenever you want? I think that about sums it up. Nate and I have a dream to take some time off and just be free. So, how do you accomplish this? What about bills? We hope to sell our house in a few years and set out on the open road. A small trailer is the way to go. It's economical and small enough to take almost anywhere. At first we'll travel the U.S, there so much breathtaking beauty just around the next bend. After that who knows. How liberating will it be to wake up and have a place like the Grand Canyon be your backyard. To many of us get stuck in the rat race we call life and never truly experience the simplistic beauty of the world. 
Heres to making dreams reality.....

Glowing Sapphires and Ghost Stories

Glowing sapphire

At the flume

Us with Todd, and our bell ringers

Over spring break Nate and I did a road trip to Franklin, NC. A gem mining mecca, Franklin and the surrounding aren't short on gem mines. Most are little, pull off the side of the road, tourist traps. They have already dug buckets that you wash in the flume, and magically find gems. We we're on the hunt for a real mine. One where we could dig our own gems. Yes, the work would be harder, but the reward could be greater, and who wants buckets that have already been picked through? We found Mason's Ruby and Sapphire mine. We arrived in the morning and Judie(the host) and Todd(Mr. Miner) got us all set up. After a few hours of digging and buttering up Todd, we finally convinced him to let us dig in the "off limits" area of the mine. We just knew thats where they'd be hiding the big ones. We found some small sapphires, rubies and a whole bunch of rocks. Not the big stuff we were hoping for. On our lunch break, Todd showed us some of the big sapphires he had found at the mine. He has an ultraviolet light that he used at night to look for sapphires. Apparently sapphires glow bright red under a black light. Somehow we got the chance to come back that night and be the first of the public to do ultraviolet mining. We were so in. The stars didn't give much light to the dark night, but the lack of moonlight would help our hunt for glowing sapphires. With nothing more than a headlamps to guide our way, and gloves to protect our hands from the ultraviolet light, we set off for the mine. Todd had the black light and gave us a demo of what the sapphires would look like under the light. They glowed like radioactive strawberries! Glowing bright red, with purple undertones. This should be easy. We walked around the mine slowly with the black light inches above the dirt, a bit back breaking, but the only way to see the coveted glow. A few minutes in and we had already found a couple smalls. Todd told us about a miner who had died at the mine back in the 30's. He said the miner haunts the mine and doesn't like strangers coming and taking his gems. During the night we did hear some strange noises, maybe a deer in the woods, or mad miner ghost, but we didn't see anything. The hunt was slowing down and the gems harder to find, so we moved a little further up the hill towards ghostly territory. Thats when the ground started to glow and Nate found his 10.65 caret sapphire, maybe the ghostly miner liked us after all. That little gem got Nate a spot on the mines website for "Bell Ringers" (any sapphire over 10cts) The total for the night ended up being right at 50 carets of sapphires. Most were small and a couple weighed in just under the 10ct mark. Heres the link to the bell ringer page if you wanna see the proof.  www.masonsmine.com/bell-ringers.html

Love 'em and leave 'em

Grubs, worms, spinners and spoons, so I've been told, all catch Bass. I'm still a little skeptical though. I have what some would refer to as a competitive nature. I don't just want to win. I want to be the best! Ok, I know thats not realistic, but you can't blame a girl for trying. So, when we (me and anyone else) go out to do something fun I seem to automatically make it a competition, if only in my head. In the spirit of a good ol' friendly "I'm better than you"attitude I just wanted to catch more fish than Nate. Now I don't begrudge Nate the thrill of catching fish. This makes him happy, and when He's happy I'm happy and he released the Bass so it was happy. All around everyone was happy, and that makes for a good day. After only about 10 minutes of casting Nate yells "Fish on!" and proceeds to pull in a 3-4lb Bass like he's Jeremy Wade or something. One fish Nate, no fish me. I was ok with this. I chalked it up to beginners luck since it was our first fishing expedition of the season. When he reeled in his second fish and I still had no bites I was a little less ok with it. Man, what was I doing wrong? A couple hours and a few bait changes later I finally had a bite. My turn to yell "fish on"only to get overly excited and forget to set the hook. No more fish on. Damn. I admit I was a little disappointed I got skunked the first day out, but the lake made for good kayaking, and I got to spend the day with a sexy fisherman. Life is good! 

Always remember to zip!

Doyles River Falls

The Trail

Nate at the falls.

Ever plan the perfect weekend and have Murphy's Law rain down, literally? I guess I can't say it was all bad, because sometimes the best experiences come from the most unexpected places. Nate and I decided to take the first weekend in May to go do some much needed camping in the mountains. The weather forecast said mostly sunny, and that was mostly good for me. Though, I know hold meteorologist in about the same aspect as a Voodoo priest. I was able to get outta work early on Friday and Nate was gonna try to do the same. We had switched vehicles that morning so I could get the truck packed and ready to hit the road. I drug all the camping gear out and loaded the truck. I was hot, tired and ready to go, but still no Nate. Uuugghh,so frustrating! Why is it that when you're in a hurry you enter this time warp where everything just seems to take forever? Great, rush hour on Friday. All I could think about was the bridge tunnel traffic and how long our 3 hour drive was really gonna take. I just wanted to beat sunset so we could have a least some daylight to get our tent set up. Finally, Nate made it home. He was off going (gotta love duty days) and had gotten about 4 hours of sleep since Thursday morning, so I was promoted to captain. Not that I minded, I love driving his truck, just not so much in traffic. I cranked up some tunes while Nate caught some Z's and played the catch up game with the GPS. Ok, I know I'm not the only one who does this: The GPS give an estimated arrival time and I just try to beat it, simple game really. There's only one rule: Get a ticket and you loose! Made up 8 minutes. Yay me! The sun was barley holding on when we got to the campground. Small Country Campground in Louisa, Va. www.smallcountry.com if you want to check it out. I like that its not in town and the camp spots have trees and aren't all crammed together. We probably spent longer than needed picking out our site. Hey, it needs to be shaded, dry, not to close to the creek(hello, mosquitoes), level and have a good place for a fire pit. Basic camping essentials settled on, so we got to getting the tent up. We finished getting the tent up just as the clouds were starting to roll in. Tent tarped, air mattress bed made, truck un-packed, yep it was time for a swim. We had the pool to ourselves and got in a quick swim under the stars(well when the clouds blew by). We woke up to the sun streaming in and a nice breeze. Pancakes and bacon cooked on a camp stove never tasted so good. Time to head to the Shenandoah Park for some waterfall hikes. We choose the Doyles River Falls Hike because it has 2 falls and you could cut it short and just do 3.5 miles or keep going and do all 8.5. They park rates it as a 3 for difficulty due to some inclines and river crossings. We got to the trail head at about 10:30am and grabbed our packs. I had this great idea of capturing the flow of the falls and took our DSLR(digital Nikon D80) with a full pack of lens and gadgets. The hike was absolutely beautiful like some ancient mythical forest lost in time. We past a few hikers and stopped a couple times to take some photos. We made it to the upper falls. I pulled out my camera and with Nate to help got the amazing photo at the top of this post. I used a neutral density filter to help keep from blowing it out, but by this time the clouds had taken care of most of the sun glare. We brought our backpacker stove, a Mountain house meal, and lunch was served with a 5 star view. What could be better? We finished lunch and our visit with another hikers overly friendly dog that assumed we needed his company, or maybe he just liked the way our lunch smelled. Back on the trail and making our way down to the lower falls we came across a severed bear cubs head right there in the middle of the trail. Yep, thats what I said, severed baby bear head. Creepy, and I'm sure somewhere in the woods is one very mad Mama bear! Poor baby. The rain had started at this point and we still hadn't made it to the lower falls. When we finally rounded the trail to lower falls it was pouring, thunder, lightning, and the whole stormy party had arrived. I passed on trying to get any shots of the lower falls and we figured it would be best to head back to the truck. I think I might have started growing gills by the time we past the trail head and saw the truck. I could wring streams of water from everything I was wearing. The worst part was we didn't bring towels or anything dry, with at least a 45 minute drive back to camp and a hot shower. Time to improvise, so the dash sun visor became Nate's seat  cover and I used the plastic wrapper that came off the tarp. Maybe we could at least keep the truck seats dry. It was a long ride back to camp, but the heater in that truck is incredible. Showers and warm dry clothes make me happy. What do you do when your tent camping in a thunderstorm and starving from a long wet hike? Go to town, obviously. I'm not sure if we were in Louisa or another small town, but a small cafe on the side of the road seemed like a good spot for dinner. I love finding those small Mom and Pop places they're the ones that give you an authentic local experience, and the people watching is usually good too. The rain was relentless and the booming thunder was telling us to spend the evening indoors. It was a great night for a movie and the "Avengers" was out. Apparently we weren't the only ones with this idea because the theater was packed! Killer flick, and a dry place to hang for a few hours made for a good evening. Meanwhile back at the tent our bed was slowly soaking up the rain. Nate wasn't feeling well and we were tired and ready for sleep when we got back to camp. Surprise, the window in our tent didn't get completely zipped and a welcome puddle had formed inside the door. The worst part was the blankets that touched the tent floor had started to act like sponges and parts or our bed were damp. Perfect! This just keeps getting better. Luckily we had a dry sleeping bag in the truck and we made it work. I woke up to a very sick Nate. Poor guy was burning up and not in the best mood. This camping trip was a bust. We broke camp as fast as we could before the rain picked up again and threw everything in the back of the truck. Maybe the elements got the best of us this trip but we had a beautiful hike and I captured the soul of the falls. One word from the wise....always remember to zip! 

Summer Stupor

Summer hasn't even officially started yet and I already feel like its passing me by. I guess maybe its this super stormy weather we've been having lately combined with Nate's weekend duty days and a sick dog at home(who is feeling much better now). Maybe its that summer semester started today but I'm itching for my first surf session of the summer, kayak fishing, more hiking and getting the wave runner out on the waves....finally! The last thing I want to do is spend my summer indoors. I hear birds chirping and the rain stopped. Later people.....

Reunited in Scotland. Part one.

What's more romantic than being reunited with your love in castle covered Scotland? Well getting there sure wasn't romantic at all. A friend and I both decided to fly to Scotland to meet the boat for a port call. I know, sounds amazing, right? Well the stress began the moment I decided to go. Have you ever tried to set up an international trip knowing your dates could change at anytime? I guess thats why they invented travel insurance. Oh, and fyi: You must request an automatic rental car because standard is standard in the UK. With everything booked and planned we set out for the airport. Our flight to Philly was delayed meaning we ran through the airport but still missed our connecting flight to Glasgow. We were rerouted to Dublin, but for some reason they tried sending Becca (travel buddy) from Philly to Frankfurt then on to Amsterdam. Yep, no Scotland in her itinerary. By the time we got that straight we were running again. I didn't realize the first rule of international travel was: #1. Cardio! Finally on our flight out of the U.S. Ah, we made it to Dublin, through customs, and on to figuring out our next move. After what seemed like miles through the Dublin airport we found someone willing to get us boarding passes to Glasgow. One problem, our luggage wasn't in Dublin, or was it? Who really knows. To be honest at that point I didn't really care if I had to wear the same thing for the next week, I just wanted to be there already! Got our tickets to Glasgow. Yep, you guessed it, running yet again to catch our flight. Touch down: Glasgow. sigh of relief. The drama doesn't stop here, I couldn't be that lucky (guess I should of picked up some 4 leaf clovers while I was running around Dublin). No luggage. Filled out paper work and prayed. Went to pick up my rental car, no more gps units. Great! Car ✔ steering wheel on wrong side ✔ driving on wrong side of the road ✔ at the mercy of an old school map ✔ Adventurous spirit ✔ Didn't really have much choice, kinda had to make this work. I was proud of us, we only got lost once, wrong way in a round about. When we found Helensburgh we couldn't find the B&B so a quick stop at a gas station and a super nice lady who explained that we just needed to "go over the wee bridge and make a left" Destination found. No luggage to change out of 2 day old clothes and still one day to our guys would be in town. We slept. In the morning I got a call from the airport that my luggage had been found and would be delivered. Yay! Becca's was still M.I.A. Breakfast and a chat with the locals then my luggage arrived. Shower and change of clothes, much better. Poor Becca wasn't smelling super sweet by this point. I offered her the use of whatever I had but luckily we got the call her bag was found and in route to the B&B.

Step #2, Find the base and figure out the how, when and where of picking up our guys in the morning. We got general directions and set out for the Faseline naval base. I think the guards at the main gate were just nice to us and said whatever we wanted to hear just so we'd stop bugging them. They told us we could come on base and wait at the visitor/pass and I.D center when the boat pulled in. They did give us a number to call also so we'd know when the boat was in port. The drive back to the room was uneventful. At least we had an idea and clean clothes so we were doing better than yesterday. We were to exhausted to sleep, or maybe excited, or both. We watched what appeared to be an English version of "wipeout" and some English music channel where we discovered "Pixie Lot" kinda like a cross between Pink and a pre-break down Brittany Spears but less annoying with a better voice http://youtu.be/OQCcwNMp830 I kept forgetting her name so I nicknamed her "pixie dust" and I think at one point I even called her "candy lips". Yep, pretty sure that happened. Not sure when it happened but sleep eventually came.

Day 2.

Up, showered, dressed, breakfast, freaking out. Drove to base. Did what the nice guards told us to and found out we couldn't get on base and we we're at the wrong end of the base. Drove to the other gate. Told again we couldn't get on base without our guys to escort us. They said the boat wasn't even suppose to be in for hours. Disappointed we decided to drive back to the room. To add to the emotional roller coaster we saw the tugs pushing the boat towards the base as we drove away. Knowing it would be hours before we could pick them up we sat in the lobby of the B&B and tried to keep ourselves entertained with t.v., facebook and English celebrity magazines. Hey, they were educational. I learned what a "stone" was as far as weights goes. Stones are pounds(one stone = 14lbs) and pounds are money, and I'm getting a headache just thinking about it! Finally got a call saying we could pick them up soon. We sat in a parking lot outside the gate for what seemed like forever waiting. We saw them walking out the gate and jumped outta the car. All the waiting, baggage nightmares, bad directions seemed to fade away. That moment was perfect.

Summer time!

I haven't written in a while and its summer time...beach, surf, sun kissed skin, and a truck full of sand! I love it! So much has happened since my last post I don't even know where to begin. We went to the Pacific Northwest for a 2 week vacation. I got to see killer whales for the first time in the San Juan's (more on this later). Nate is back at sea on the USS Montpelier. I've changed jobs and hope to be starting school again soon. I just got back from a week in southern Georgia/North Florida. I had a chance to meet up with an old friend and reconnect and spend some time surfing with long time friends but best of all I got a few days with the Mr. I really miss that man! 9 hours is a long drive but so worth it. I realized a few things on my visit. First, I miss the south, the true south. Second, I really need to work on my surfing skills! Third, Good friends will always be good friends no matter how often you get to see each other.

Well the dogs gotta go out so more later.

~ Care